Re: Five o'clock shadow

: : : : : : In a message to my favorite down under correspondant I said I had a bad case of 'five o'clock shadow' since I got up and around so early this morning. I don't know if this phrase that means a growth of stubble that appears later on in the day is the product of US advertising or is part of the global lexicon. Do all of you who shave get this affliction?

: : : :
: : : : I know several men who do. I once shared a house with a man, a journalist, who had to take his electic shaver to work with him because his beard grew so abundantly. It was really something. I'm not sure whether the term is used in the UK or not.

: : : It is certainly used in the UK. I am not afflicted - not since I gave up shaving and grew a beard, anyway.

: : Yes it's a common term down here too. In fact, I always had a rule that I didn't go out with men incapable of 5 o'clock shadows. Only question is, why 5 o'clock? And do they mean 5am or 5pm?

: 5 p.m.

: If you shave in the morning (I do - at least when I go to the office), then by mid-afternoon, hair is beginning to grow back. the jowls are the most noticeable place for this to occur and is stubbly by the time us men leave work (traditionally 5 p.m. was leaving time for 9-5'ers)
: the stubble is usually dark, so the jowls look 'shadowed'.

: having '5 o'clock shadow' is the norm for mature men - and it would not be expected that we would shave again unless going out in the evening to somewhere particularly fastidious.

: I recall Ian Flemming having James Bond refuse to shave twice in a day when contemplating going out fot the evening. I think he was due to play cards with Draco?? (the industrialist card cheat) in "Moonraker". No outrage that 007 was taking speed to be sharp through the evening. Bond was most un-PC.

: however, Bond's refusal to be mr smooth was why he couldn't do the book "You often shave twice".